When I lived in Alaska, landing at SeaTac on the way back home was like arriving on the front stoop of my house. Most flights to Anchorage run through Seattle (with some exceptions, of course) and parading through the concourse there always made me realize that I was just one flight — three-and-a-half hours or so — from being back in the Great Land. And that felt good.

So when I landed here a few minutes ago — for the first time in three-and-a-half years — it was comforting to have that same feeling well back up within me. I enjoy my life in San Diego. And I still plan to sail away to the tropics at some point. But I’m a northerner. A FAR northerner. Alaska and New England, of course, but also Montana and Idaho, and even places I’ve visted such as Scotland, northern Norway and Iceland — these are the places that feel like Home.

And while I’m sick about the reason for my first return to Alaska since I left in April 2011 (a funeral for a wonderful friend, Carol Phillips), I am very much looking forward to landing in Anchorage a few hours hence. And then seeing “the light that breaks upon the day” tomorrow.